


The Deadliest Scars Are The Ones No One Can See

by KLDragon



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, I'm bad at tags, Keith (Voltron) Whump, Keith (Voltron) has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sorry Not Sorry, Sparring, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:21:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28925010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KLDragon/pseuds/KLDragon
Summary: There are many kinds of scars, but not all of them are visible. In fact, it’s the ones you can’t see that are the biggest problem. The ones that time won’t heal.In other words, Keith has PTSD, and no one knows about it until Lance accidentally triggers it.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 38





	1. You Didn’t Mean To Hurt Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alt title: The Scars Time Won’t Heal  
> Something I came up with for some aftermath of s6e5. Takes place on the Atlas sometime in season 8 (maybe late season 7)🤷🏻♀️.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive me, I have no knowledge of sword fighting maneuvers so I can’t really say what they did while sparring... same with the hand to hand combat... basically any fight scenes that may come up😬.

Lance was sparring with Keith, Shiro leaning against the wall by the door, watching. Right now they were using mock swords, seeing as Lance had only just found out he could turn his bayard into an Altean broadsword. He hadn’t really had a chance to practice with it, since Keith was the only one on the team to use a sword, and by the time Lance had found out he could form the sword, Keith had already left for the Blade of Marmora. He knew Keith was the better swordsman, so Lance knew that he should have been doing better than he was currently. After Lance had successfully disarmed Keith for the third time, he knew for certain that something was off.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” He asked while they took a quick water break.

“Nothing’s wrong, Lance,” Keith answered, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

Lance didn’t relent. “Come on,” he said dramatically, “I know you. If you were going easy on me, you might let my disarm you once, but three times? I don’t think so.”

“I’m just tired. I’m feeling better now,” came the answer.

“Uh huh,” Lance said, not believing Keith one bit. “How about this. Don’t go easy on me. I can take it.”

“You sure?”

“Yes I’m sure. No holding back.” as an afterthought, he added, “First one disarmed has to do the other’s chores for a week.

“You’re on!” Keith said, a hint of a smile on his lips at the challenge.

Of course, Lance knew that if Keith wasn’t going to hold back, he would be doing double chores for the next week, but he also knew that Keith needed something to lift his spirits. And Lance just so happened to know that beating someone - in this case, Lance - at sparring would do the trick. That didn’t mean Lance was going to make it easy though.

10 minutes in, neither of them had been disarmed yet. Lance decided a little bit of friendly banter wouldn’t hurt.

“Hey, Mullet! I thought I said no holding back! If I wanted it to be this easy, I would have asked one of the others to spar.”

“You want it hard then?”

“Bring it on!”

With that, Lance suddenly found himself on the ground, sword five feet to his left.

“Ready to do double chores for the next week?”

“I didn’t say I was doing my own with your’s,” Lance said, smirking.

“Lance, you agreed to doing Keith’s chores, and I’m not letting you out of doing your own,” Shiro called out.

“Oh come on, Shiro! Playing favorites again?”

“No. Just making sure you keep your side of the deal,” he said, walking over with a faint smile on his lips.

“ _ Fine _ ,” Lance said, exaggerating the word “I guess I should start now.”

“You know, I could use some practice in hand to hand combat,” Shiro said to Keith, gesturing to his new prosthetic.

“You’re on, old man,” Keith said, smirking.

“That’s no way to treat a senior officer,” Shiro said, mock hurt in his voice.

“I’m the leader of Voltron. You’re only the captain of a garrison ship. I think I might just outrank you.”

“You’re going to regret that.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Won’t know till we start.”

“Ok, never mind. I’m staying. I need to see this,” Lance said excitedly.

Ignoring him, Keith and Shiro got into their fighting stances. Keith attacked first, aiming a kick at Shiro’s left side. Shiro grabbed Keith’s ankle, holding him there. Keith struggled to get his leg free, failing. Then he smirked, and let himself go limp. Taken by surprise, Shiro found himself pulled to the ground by Keith’s dead weight. Keith then put his forearm to Shiro’s throat, causing the latter to surrender. They both rose, Keith grinning and Shiro with a fake pout on his face. In a laughing fit, Lance managed to get out five seemingly harmless words. And, maybe a year ago, they  _ would  _ have been harmless. But not now.  **_Definitely_ ** not now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I actually have about 5 chapters of this written so far, but this first chapter is the longest so far. Please let me know what you think in the comments, but no swearing please. I will try to update every Friday, but no promises. Again, thank you for reading!


	2. But I Still Felt This Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Words. Harmless, right? As Lance finds out, words can carry a bigger impact than you would think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short chapter, only 135 characters, but I hope you like it! Happy reading!!

“That’s the Keith I remember.”

Five innocent words said without a second thought. Until “The Incident” - as it would come to be known as - happened, that is.

Keith went rigid, irises slitting and sclera tinged yellow. He staggered back, looking panicked. Shiro turned around to look at Keith, his face creased with worry.

“Are you ok?” Shiro asked, putting a hand on Keith’s shoulder.

Immediately Keith backed up, right hand shooting out, claws -  _ wait _ ,  **_CLAWS?!?!?!_ ** \- catching Shiro’s left cheek. Stunned, Shiro fell to the ground, four lines of red already starting to form where Keith had scratched him. Keith seemed to come back to his senses a bit, eyes losing their intensity, but staying slitted. He looked at Shiro on the ground, and saw the blood. He took a step back, then turned and ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, 157 hits and 16 kudos in six days?!? That's five times the amount I got on my last work that was published a month ago! Thank you all so much for reading this!


	3. You Tried To Help Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashbacks: not always good. Past trauma: bad. Put both together, and - as Keith finds out - you have a recipe for disaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, another chapter in! This one is from Keith's point of view, and I *might* have gone a little overboard with the italic and bold tools... Hope you enjoy!

“I’m just tired. I’m feeling better now.” Keith wasn’t lying. Not really. He  _ was  _ tired, and he  _ was _ feeling better. After all, he’d only been released from the hospital a week ago. But there was something else, too. A prickling feeling at the back of his neck, like something bad was going to happen. He had been so distracted by it to the point that he’d been disarmed three times, by  _ Lance _ of all people.

“First one disarmed has to do the other’s chores for a week.” There.  _ That _ was the distraction Keith needed. Lance turned out to be really good. Keith was still holding back, of course, but it felt good to be sparring with a competent opponent. Of course, once Lance said not to hold back again, he couldn’t resist giving him what he’d asked for. Then Shiro asked for a round of hand to hand combat, and of course he’d said yes. To be honest, he needed the practice too. Surprisingly, he’d managed to best Shiro, and he couldn’t keep the grin from his face. Then those words. Those  **_cursed_ ** _ words.  _ Immediately he was back at the facility, fighting the clone, and he was alone, and he was fighting his brother,  _ but it wasn’t his brother, but it looked like him,  _ **and his brother was saying that he should have abandoned him** ,  **_AND..._ **

A hand on his shoulder. Shiro was saying something, but it wasn’t Shiro, it was the clone, and he had to fight, and he needed to get away from him. Next thing he knew, he was looking at Shiro, and Shiro was on the ground, and there were long red lines on his cheek, and  _ oh no, oh quiznek, did  _ **_he_ ** _ do that? _ He had to get out of there,  **_now_ ** . He turned, and ran. He didn’t care that he ran into Griffin on the way out, knocking him over, or the fact that everyone was staring as he ran past. He just had to get out of there, away from what he’d done. He didn’t stop till he’d entered his room and shut the door. He leaned back against the door and sunk to the ground, taking shuddering breaths.  _ You can’t cry _ , he told himself.  _ Not here _ . He lost the battle against the tears.

He stayed like that, back against the door, his body racked with sobs, for about 10 minutes. Suddenly there was a knock at the door.

“Keith, I know you’re in there,” a familiar voice said. “Please, let me in.”

Keith opened the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *looks at personal notes and realizes there is only one more prewritten chapter* Um... So I only have one more prewritten chapter after this one, so I might have to take a little break from uploading new chapters to this... Don't worry, I'll still update next week, I just might have to start publishing for another story while I write more of this one. Hope you enjoyed!


	4. But I'm Still Going Insane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having your mom there for you in your time of need is always the best option, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A new chapter! Four days late... I'm sorry I didn't post this Friday like I said I would... It slipped my mind (even though I posted something else that day...) Hope you like this!

Krolia stepped into Keith’s room, Kosmo right at her heels. There was hardly anything in it except for the essentials: a bed (of course), a dresser, a closet, and not much else. Keith had never been one to have much more than the essentials. Keith had moved over to the bed, and wasn’t looking at her. Kosmo had gotten into the bed as well, and was resting his head on Keith’s lap. Keith still wouldn’t look at her. She went over to him and tilted his head up. He didn’t resist. Slitted yellow eyes bore into hers, filled with pain. The pain of someone who’d just hurt a friend. Who’s just hurt _family._ She felt like her heart was being squeezed. She’d heard what’d happened from Lance, but actually _seeing_ her son in this kind of pain was almost too much for her to bear. She ran her hand through Keith’s hair making soothing sounds. She saw his eyes return to normal as he closed them, relaxing into her embrace.

“It’s ok now. Just let go,” Krolia said. Wrong thing to say. Keith went rigid, eyes shooting open, his irises slits again. He stumbled off the bed, looking around frantically, but seemingly not seeing anything. Not anything in the room anyways. Krolia got off the bed, unsure what to do, but before she could actually _do_ anything, Kosmo tackled Keith to the ground and started licking the right side of Keith’s face. Right over his scar. _Oh quiznek,_ Krolia thought. Keith hadn’t told her how he’d received that scar, and she’d never asked, but she knew it had to have been traumatic. None of them knew what had happened when he’d chased after the clone, but he’d come back bruised and with a bad burn on the right side of his face, and the clone was missing its prosthetic. She honestly wasn’t even sure if Shiro knew what’d happened. Kosmo got off Keith, the latter propping himself up on his elbows.

“Thanks boy,” he said, his voice sounding weak.

Krolia helped him up. He didn’t look at her.

“Keith, Don’t do that again. I know something’s wrong. Please let me help you.”

“I...”

“It’s ok, you don’t need to say anything. Just know that you can always talk to me. I’ll always be there for you.” Krolia led Keith to the bed, Kosmo getting back to his original position, and they stayed there, Keith curled up in his mother’s embrace, with Krolia running a hand through his hair, for what felt like a lifetime, but was probably only 5 minutes.

Then there was a knock at the door. Krolia got up and opened the door. Shiro was waiting outside, left cheek bandaged.

“Could I talk to Keith? Alone?”

She looked back at Keith. He nodded.

“All right. I’ll be just around the corner in the med-bay if you need anything.” Currently she was working to merge Galran medicine with human medicine, and working to find what serums - anesthetics and such - would work for hybrids - namely Keith. She signaled for Kosmo to follow her, and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, sorry for being four days late... and this is the last chapter I have complete at the moment... I'll start posting whenever I finish a chapter though :) Hope you enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments. Keyboard smashes, random words, emojis, and rants are all accepted. My only rules for comments is no swearing or anything inappropriate. Please use your best judgement. I will delete any comments that violate these two rules.


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